His Boy
by sunnywinterclouds
Summary: Every day for the rest of his life, Toothless thinks of His Boy.


Toothless can remember every single day of his three hundred years of life in remarkable detail. From the day he was hatched, he can recall every moment of every minute of every day. It's all there, perfectly categorized and precise, and when he's upset he can dig up a memory and relive it and be okay again.

But there's one day, _The _Day, that stands out dramatically from the rest. He thinks of it often, even though it makes him as sad as it does happy. He can't help it.

There are so many days it could be.

It could be the day the Red Death attacked his home island, leaving him the only Night Fury known to the earth. That day is burned into his mind, etched out clearly and concisely on the walls of his insides, and he can still hear the dying screams of his family and see the flames consuming everything he'd ever known but it's not The Day.

It could be the day he came across Berk for the first time, and saw these Viking humans destroying his people for sport, spilling blood for glory, trying to wipe out the other dragons like the Red Death did the Night Furies. That's the night he starts attacking the village of Berk, as revenge, as defense, as a way of not giving up.

It's A Day, that's certain, but it's not The Day.

The Day is when he meets His Boy.

He'd been lying in that net for hours, and he'd accepted his fate, made peace with it, when His Boy arrived. He was bad news, Toothless was sure of it, but he would make it end faster and at least someone would benefit from his death and the last Night Fury understood that his species was never meant to stay alive in the world for long.

But His Boy cut the ropes.

And with it, the threads of everything Toothless thought he knew.

Humans are vicious, cruel, merciless. They don't care about others. They're dumber than Gronkles and weaker than Terrors and dragons must always, _always_ go for the kill because a human always will.

His Boy was different.

His Boy was small, even for a human, clever as a Fury and quick as a Nadder. He was friendly, and kind, and he had bright eyes.

Toothless remembers his eyes.

His Boy set him free, both from his ropes and from his beliefs. He helped him, both to fly again and to realize that not all humans were monsters. In fact, none of the Vikings he met on Berk were ever cruel to him again after His Boy taught them what he had taught Toothless.

There are no monsters. There are only differences, and there is only evil if you believe that it's there.

That day, The Day, is the one he thinks of now.

The species of the Night Furies killed by a dragon, and saved by a boy. A _human_ boy.

His Boy.

He can still picture His Boy's face so clearly, even after all these years since he's last seen him. On those last days of his life, he'd been bedridden and pale, his once unruly dark hair thin and white. His eyes were colourless and his skin was cold and his limbs were weak.

That's not how Toothless remembers him.

He remembers His Boy when he was still actually a boy and not a man. When Toothless lets his eyelids drift shut for even a moment, he sees the brightest, greenest, most brilliant orbs on all of Berk obscured by absolutely untamable brown hair. He sees an energetic, agile young human with curiosity wild as the locks on his head. He sees those crooked teeth that make up that crooked smile that he liked so much he took it up himself. He sees each and every freckle littering His Boy's face, the ones dotted across his nose and splashed onto his cheeks.

He sees Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third when he was young. The bravest human or dragon that Berk and maybe the world has ever seen. A hero. His Boy.

He can't stop the images. They're there, like the sun and the sky and he can't stop them any more than he can stop being a dragon. They're part of him. _He's _part of him.

And when he remembers, when he remembers The Day and all the days that followed, the times of his life that make him smile that crooked smile that His Boy taught him when he thinks of them, he doesn't feel the sorrow of when His Boy was too weak to fly with him, too fragile to run with him, too old to play with him as he used to. Toothless never minded, he loved his boy too much to care that he could no longer fly or run or play, but His Boy was so sad and Toothless was sad because that crooked smile disappeared and those bright eyes grew dull and those freckles faded.

He doesn't feel the emptiness of when His Boy left for good, when his eyes stopped seeing and his chest stopped moving and Toothless knew that they would never fly again.

He doesn't let himself feel that.

He's not strong enough to experience his soul ripping in half every time he thinks of His Boy.

Every day of the rest of his life, he thinks of His Boy.

And on the last day of his life, this day, he remembers.

And when his eyes close, as His Boy's did all those years ago, they don't open again in this world.

But they do in the next.

And there is His Boy, young and happy and freckly, wearing his riding gear and a crooked smile, and his bright eyes crinkle along the edges when he sees his dragon, and he holds out the saddle in his hands and they fly and they are free. For eternity, they have each other, and they are free.

For the first time in centuries, for the first time since he'd lost his best friend, Toothless is free.

He has His Boy.


End file.
